For the second time in as many weeks, Oklahoma City Barons head coach Todd Nelson was asked about the possibility of young Oilers star Taylor Hall being moved to centre. Last week Nelson was non-committal, suggesting that he wanted to give Taylor some time to get back into top form after starting the season late due to injury.

I think we’ll keep him [on the wing] for right now. Right now I think he’s only played 12 games or so, so the thing is that he’s starting to feel comfortable, starting to get his touch back. Depending on what happens with the lockout situation, if it does move on the way it is we have the latitude to explore that opportunity with Taylor but right now I think he feels very comfortable with where he’s at.

Hall certainly looks more comfortable than he did to start the year, both by eye and statistically. Over his first half-dozen AHL games Hall picked up four points; he’s recorded 12 points over his last six contests. The improvement is also evident in the marks Hall has received in our Barons player grades (Related: Grades for games 11-20). Over his first six games, Hall got an average score of 5.2. Over the last six games, that score has jumped to an average of 6.2 (note – I previously miscalculated his average over the final six games and have since corrected that. JW).

Is Hall at his peak yet? It’s hard to say. As Nelson points out, we’re dealing with a pretty small run of games.

It’s possibly also worth noting that Hall took a maintenance day yesterday. Nelson downplayed it and said it related to his neck, but it might be an indication that Hall is still not up to full speed.

David Staples wrote on this subject last month and presented the case for Hall to be tried up the middle, referencing the interest that both former head coach Tom Renney and current bench boss Ralph Krueger exhibited in trying Hall in the pivot position. Given that interest, Staples reasoned:

[T]here’s no telling how long the trio [of Hall, Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins] will be in Oklahoma City, and there’s no better place for Hall to learn the centre position than in OKC. He’s out of the NHL spotlight and facing a somewhat lower level of competition. His mistakes — and they will be plentiful at first — won’t be so crucial to the franchise.

But the Oilers really do need to see if Hall can cut it at centre, where the defensive responsibilities are far more complex and onerous than on the wing.

A counter argument was made in the comments section by Derek Blasutti, a frequent contributor at Oilers blog Copper & Blue. In addition to citing the choice of Hall’s junior coach Bob Boughner to move the young man to the wing, Blasutti wrote that the player’s game is just better suited to the port side:

I don’t get why you’d take a player like Hall, who excels by carrying the puck in the neutral zone, and put him at a position where he’ll have less opportunity to do that.

Hall’s best attributes are his physical gifts. He’s a smart enough player, but he does his damage by driving to the net. Putting him at Centre just means he’ll start lower in his own end, and have more opposition players between him and the net when he finally does get the puck.

Oddly enough, I find myself in agreement with both points to a certain degree.

First: my belief is that Hall likely is better suited to playing on the wing than he is to playing centre. Partially, that’s because he’s already gone through a good chunk of the learning curve on the wing, but largely it’s just my personal analysis of his talent concurring with Blasutti’s. Hall is an aggressive, energetic player; he gets more freedom on the wing and asking him to take on the more controlled centre ice position clips his wings to some degree. It will probably reduce the number of times he gets hammered by an opposition defender, but it will come at a cost.

However, that’s hardly an air-tight argument. Krueger and Renney are both smart hockey men; the fact that they consider the shift in position of interest is something that deserves consideration. Certainly there’s no question that the Oilers could use help at centre.

Given the combination of a supportive head coach and organizational need, this seems like an experiment the Oilers will try at some point. That’s reason enough to give Hall a shot at the position: ultimately the outcome of regular season games in the AHL is of no particular long-term significance, and it makes a lot more sense to experiment in the minors than it does in the majors. If Hall clearly struggles, it isn’t a big deal; he just shifts back to wing. If he does well, then trying him at centre becomes a more viable option once NHL hockey returns.

The one caveat I would add is one hinted at by Nelson’s comment: the players’ own wishes. While a players desires can’t be held sacrosanct (Andrew Cogliano, for example, should have been told to get used to life on the wing years ago), this is a tricky situation. The presence of players like Hall and Eberle in the AHL is a rarity; other young stars in a similar situation such as Tyler Seguin chose to go overseas rather than endure the grind of a minor-league schedule. Hall has earned some consideration in how he has handled; if he’s just enjoying playing on a line with Eberle and Nugent-Hopkins and does not want to be moved than that’s something that should be respected.

But if Hall’s open to a trial at centre ice, I think it should happen. It is something the organization will likely do at some point anyway, and no time makes more sense than the present.

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